MOVIE MONDAY - ORPHAN BLACK

“Twins have a special bond. They feel safer with each other than with their peers.” - Jeanne Phillips

We are watching the 2013 TV Series “Orphan Black” created by John Fawcett and Graeme Manson, and starring Tatiana Maslany, Dylan Bruce and Jordan Gavaris. It is a Canadian science fiction thriller and focusses on human cloning. The series raises issues about the moral and ethical implications of human cloning, and its effect on issues of personal identity.

The plot centres on Sarah Manning (Maslany), who is an orphan, an outsider and street-wise grifter. After witnessing the suicide of a woman who seems to be her twin, Sarah assumes the stranger’s identity. Sarah wants to clean out the dead woman’s savings, but instead Sarah is thrust into a deadly mystery as she realises the unbelievable truth: She and the dead woman are clones. Sarah searches for answers that will help her survive, and she discovers that there are plenty more women like her out there – all genetically identical individuals who were planted in unsuspecting birth parents and nurtured in completely different circumstances. With no idea who created the clones, she’ll need to discover the reason in a hurry as an assassin is killing them one by one. Her foster brother Felix Dawkins (Gavaris), an eccentric, gay, over-the-top, artist helps Sarah in her quest for the truth.

After watching the first few episodes we were hooked. The series is well-written, well-produced, with extremely good acting and direction and a perfect blend of mystery, comedy, drama, science fiction and poignancy. Tatiana Maslany is amazing in her depiction of the clones, each of which has her own personality, quirks and mannerisms. Jordan Gavaris does a great job in depicting the unconventional Felix, but so often provides comic relief, making the sometimes “heavy” plot roll along. Maria Doyle Kennedy who plays Sarah’s foster mother does a great job with a character that hides many surprises.

We are up to Season 3 at the moment and still enjoying it immensely. The series received generally favourable reviews, with the first season scoring a 73 out of 100 on Metacritic; season 2 scoring a 79 out of 100; season 3 scoring 70 out of 100; and season 4 has a score of 80 out of 100. The fifth and final season will be aired in 2017 and I look forward to watching this series to the end. I am sure it will not disappoint.

OUT OF ORDER...

“Men have become the tools of their tools.” - Henry David Thoreau

I have just found out that Telstra our internet provider will interrupt our internet service for three days and I am using alternative access to write this, which of necessity will be a very short entry. Thank you, for not advising us Telstra, I had to find out through your "service down pages"!

MOVIE MONDAY - BLU-RAY MOVIES

“The greatest enemy of progress is not stagnation, but false progress.” - Sydney J. Harris

Watching movies at home is wonderful, especially if you have a good HDTV and a Blu-ray player. Although Blu-ray discs are a fantastic technology, there are several things about these discs that I abhor with a vengeance. These relate to the manufacturing and production of these rather than the technical aspect of the Blu-ray disc. My major bugbear is the zone restriction embedded in the disc. This is to protect the commercial interests of the large film studios, but it is a feature so easily circumvented that it is simply of nuisance value. I have a multi-zone Blu-ray player, so I can enjoy discs that I have purchased in USA, Europe and Asia, but some friends of mine had a player that was restricted to the Australian zone and hence they were unable to watch US Blu-rays. Until they found out on the web that they could reprogram their player with their remote control and now it is converted to a multi-zone player!

An extremely useful feature that I often use is the subtitle option. Even English subtitles on English speaking films is sometimes a boon, as the sound quality, accents or the complications of the script make subtitles necessary. I watched “Gosford Park” recently on disc and was livid when I discovered that the disc did not have the benefits of subtitlitng or captions for the hearing impaired. The soundtrack of this movie contains so many asides, so much mumbling, some strange accents and also so much overlapping conversation that it was painful to try and decipher what was being said half the time. This was a pity as the film is a very good one. The other benefit of subtitles of course is that one may turn on the Italian or French or German or Spanish subtitles and practice one’s language skills.

Another thing that annoys me is the excessive piracy and copyright warnings on the Blu-ray disc. In some discs there is even a 60 sec “trailer” about “stealing movies”, as well as the conventional FBI warnings about oilrigs and prisons and how you are not able to show these movies at those venues. I pay full price to get my disc and then I am bombarded by all this nonsense that I can’t even fast forward through! Add to that the Dolby trailer and numerous company logos, distributor logos, production company animations, etc. It can be anything up to 5 minutes before you actually get to see the film! And of course some discs contain trailers of other movies, sometimes as many as five, which once again you cannot fast forward through. Ten minutes later, you can watch your movie.

Speaking of pricing, most Blu-rays are excessively priced, especially when first released. If the prices were more reasonable and consistently low, then I think the piracy problem would be minimised. I usually wait until I buy my disc for my collection and instead of paying anything between $20-$30 for a newly released movie, I wait for a few months and am able to buy it anywhere between $7-$10. Most people would prefer to own a copy of the original rather than the pirated inferior versions and this would be possible if the prices were consistently low.

Have you ever tried to read the film credits on the back of a Blu-ray cover? The font of the used is so small and narrow that it is often illegible. I once even tried to read it with a magnifying glass on a particular Blu-ray but failed to get any satisfaction. Similarly, the colours of the fonts used are also a rather bad choice as the contrast is very bad and makes reading the synopsis or credits a difficult undertaking. This is simply bad design.

For all their shortcomings, Blu-rays are much superior to DVDs and this explains their popularity and greater market share. Now, that we have got used to them and grown to love them (and hate them) it’s time to adopt a new technology, Blu-ray 3D! And maybe tomorrow Violet-ray! And the day after Ultraviolet-ray, X-ray?

HIROSHIMA DAY 2015

“Japan learned from the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that the tragedy wrought by nuclear weapons must never be repeated and that humanity and nuclear weapons cannot coexist.” - Daisaku Ikeda

In August 1945, during the final stage of the Second World War, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The two bombings, which killed at least 129,000 people, remain the only use of nuclear weapons for warfare in history. As the war entered its sixth and final year, the Allies had begun to prepare for what was anticipated to be a very costly invasion of the Japanese mainland. This was preceded by an immensely destructive firebombing campaign that obliterated many Japanese cities.

The war in Europe had concluded when Nazi Germany signed its instrument of surrender on May 8, 1945, but with the Japanese refusal to accept the Allies’ demands for unconditional surrender, the Pacific War dragged on. Together with the United Kingdom and China, the United States called for the unconditional surrender of the Japanese armed forces in the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, 1945; this was buttressed with the threat of “prompt and utter destruction”.

By August 1945, the Allied “Manhattan Project” had successfully detonated an atomic device in the New Mexico desert and subsequently produced atomic weapons based on two alternate designs. The 509th Composite Group of the U.S. Army Air Forces was equipped with the specialised Silverplate version of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, that could deliver them from Tinian in the Mariana Islands. A uranium gun-type atomic bomb (Little Boy) was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, followed by a plutonium implosion-type bomb (Fat Man) on the city of Nagasaki on August 9.

Little Boy exploded 2,000 feet above Hiroshima in a blast equal to 12-15,000 tons of TNT, destroying five square miles of the city. Within the first two to four months of the bombings, the acute effects of the atomic bombings killed 90,000–166,000 people in Hiroshima and 39,000–80,000 in Nagasaki; roughly half of the deaths in each city occurred on the first day. During the following months, large numbers died from the effect of burns, radiation sickness, and other injuries, compounded by illness and malnutrition. In both cities, most of the dead were civilians, although Hiroshima had a sizable military garrison. On August 15, just days after the bombing of Nagasaki and the Soviet Union's declaration of war, Japan announced its surrender to the Allies. On September 2, it signed the instrument of surrender, effectively ending World War II. The role of the bombings in Japan’s surrender and their ethical justification are still debated.

In Japan, the survivors of the bombings are called hibakusha (“explosion-affected people”). The shock and great suffering in the wake of the bombings caused Japan to seek the abolition of nuclear weapons from the world ever since, putting in place one of the world’s most committed and extensive non-nuclear policies. More than 400,000 hibakusha (258,310 in Hiroshima and 145,984 in Nagasaki) are recorded in Japan.

This is a day to:

• Remember those who died and were wounded by the bombing of Hiroshima

• Remember all people of every nation who died and were wounded during World War II

• Assert the right of everyone on earth to live a life free from the fear of war

• Work for a world free from nuclear weapons

• Work to adopt peaceful use of nuclear power.

MOVIE MONDAY - GRAVITY

“Good science fiction is intelligent. It asks big questions that are on people's minds. It's not impossible. It has some sort of root in the abstract.” - Nicolas Cage

We watched Alfonso Cuarón’s 2013 movie “Gravity” at the weekend. It starred Sandra Bullock, George Clooney and Ed Harris (voice only). I had been looking forward to seeing this film after hearing all the hype about it and also seeing it received a rating of 7.9/10 in IMDB. Well, unfortunately it proved to be a case of “when you hear there are lots of cherries for the picking at some place, be prepared by taking with you only a small basket…”, as my grandfather used to say. This was a woeful movie, full of clichés and almost no plot, no character development, overlong (even at 91 minutes!), and frankly, boring.

In a nutshell this is what happens: Veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (Clooney) is in charge of the Shuttle Explorer mission to repair the Hubble Telescope by the rookie specialist Ryan Stone (Bullock). Suddenly Houston control advises them to abort the mission with a warning that a Russian missile hit a satellite, causing a chain reaction of destruction, with large clusters of debris coming upon them. Soon the astronauts lose communication with Mission Control in Houston. The debris strikes the Explorer and Ryan is cut loose from the shuttle while Kowalski is forced to bring her back. However, the Explorer is completely damaged and now their only chance to return to Earth is to reach a space station. But being short of oxygen and fuel is the least of their problems...

I love good science fiction and I am prepared to allow Sci-Fi to bend the rules of physics, for a good reason, and also I put up with a director using some clichés, provided he/she is packing some punch with plot, good characters or being innovative in dealing with some social, political or interpersonal issues, as all good science fiction does. “Gravity” fails in this respect. From start to finish there were blatant factual errors in everything from the laws of physics, engineering and orbital mechanics, right down to the unidentifiable views of the earth from space (yes, I saw the Nile and Arabia, as well as Florida, but nothing else recognisable). There is no intelligent plot, no world-shaking challenges, no engagement of the viewer.

Ryan Stone who was meant to be an astronaut behaved like a small child when trying to fly spacecraft, even resorting to “eenie-meenie-miney-moe” when trying to find the right button to press for some critical and essential function. Matt Kowalski was a pain to listen to and came across as complete idiot bordering on dementia, repeating trite stories about his life to Mission Control while offering motherhood statements and inane advice to Ryan.

The film is a special effects extravaganza, with CGI and special attention to 3D gimmicky. It’s meant to “wow” people with its depiction of how it would be to float up in space with the earth above/below/beside you as you spin all around. Yes, that’s OK for 5 minutes… What happens if there is no story and no good characters to make your film a memorable, engaging experience? Viewers lose interest and become bored.

I must say that I am becoming very wary of George Clooney films. They have disappointed me in the past (I shudder when I remember the bathos of “The Men Who Stare at Goats” or the muddled and pretentious “Syriana” or the disappointing “The American” – ugh!). It’ll have to be on the recommendation of someone I trust very much that I will now go and watch another Clooney film…

“Gravity” was a waste of my time. I’d rather watch a good old-fashioned sci-fi movie like one of the “Star Trek” series or one of the “Star Wars” ones! Better stories, better actors, great humour and special effects galore as well. If it’s drama, character development and tension you want instead, then watch a standard earthbound film, no need to go out in space or watch pretend science fiction!

FOOD ADDITIVES

“It would be nice if the Food and Drug Administration stopped issuing warnings about toxic substances and just gave me the names of one or two things still safe to eat.” - Robert Fuoss

Do you really know what you eat? I don’t mean not knowing what you are consuming generically, like “ice cream” or “apple pie”, what I mean is do you know what else you are eating when you are eating food, especially many of the processed foods available in your supermarket? It is estimated that the average Australian consumes over 5 kg of food additives per year. In other Western countries this amount may be even higher.

Food additives are chemicals added to foods to keep them fresh or to enhance their colour, flavour or texture. These chemicals are listed on the label, along with other ingredients, in a descending order by weight. Sometimes, the additive is spelt out in full; at other times, it is represented by a code number. Over the past 50 years the use of food additives has escalated to the point where very few of us know exactly what is in the food we eat. The rates of diseases such as cancer, obesity, diabetes, autism, depression, asthma and ADHD have also increased dramatically over this time and many researchers are linking these increases in disease incidence (at least in part) to some of the food additives that are widely used. How many of us know what these chemicals are, what they do, which ones are safe and which ones are known to be harmful?

Not all food additives are harmful and a few of them have been used in food for hundreds or even thousands of years. Currently, 400 or so additives are approved for use in Australia, most of them are safe, well-tested and pose no problem for most people. However, there are at least 60 food additives used in our foods, which are at best questionable in terms of safety, or in the worst case known to be harmful.

The different types of food additive and their uses include:

Anti-caking agents - stop ingredients from becoming lumpy.

Antioxidants - prevent foods from oxidising, or going rancid.

Artificial sweeteners - increase the sweetness.

Emulsifiers - stop fats from clotting together.

Food acids - maintain the right sourness level.

Colours - enhance or add colour.

Humectants - keep foods moist.

Flavours - add flavour.

Flavour enhancers - increase the power of a flavour.

Mineral salts - enhance texture, taste.

Preservatives - stop microbes from multiplying and spoiling the food.

Thickeners - enhance texture.

Stabilisers - maintains uniformity of food dispersion.

Flour treatment - improves baking quality.

Glazing agent - improves appearance and can protect food.

Propellants - help propel food from a container.

Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) is responsible for the approval of food additives that are allowable in Australian foods. All food additives used in Australia undergo a safety assessment, which includes rigorous laboratory testing and animal trials, before they are approved. Similarly, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) supervise and regulate the use of additives in products sold in the United States.

Toxicological tests on animals are routinely used to find out the amount of additive that is expected to be safe when consumed by humans. This is usually an amount 100 times less than the maximum daily dose at which ‘no observable effects’ are produced by an additive consumed over the test animal’s lifetime. If there is any doubt over the safety of an additive, approval is not given. If new scientific information becomes available suggesting that a food additive is no longer safe, the approval to use the food additive would be withdrawn.

There are some problems with the testing procedures that can cause reactions in a human population. Most food additives are tested in isolation rather than in combination with other additives. The long-term effects of consuming a combination of different additives are currently unknown. A small number of people in the population are sensitive or allergic to particular food additives and may have reactions like hives or diarrhoea. This doesn’t mean that all foods containing additives need to be automatically treated with suspicion. People with food allergies and intolerances are also often sensitive to chemicals found naturally in certain foods, such as nuts or shellfish.

It should also be remembered that there are other, worse things to fear in food than food additives. Food additives would come in at the end of the line, after food-borne microorganisms (like Salmonella), inappropriate hygiene and eating habits, environmental contaminants and naturally occurring toxins in food. Also, there is a common misconception that processed foods automatically contain food additives. Foods like long-life milk, canned foods and frozen foods are all processed, yet none of them need extra chemicals and many of them are completely free of additives.

Some common food additives that may cause problems for some people and their code numbers include:

Flavour enhancers - monosodium glutamate (MSG) 621.

Food colourings - tartrazine 102; yellow 2G107; sunset yellow FCF110; cochineal 120.

Preservatives - benzoates 210, 211, 212, 213; nitrates 249, 250, 251, 252; sulphites 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225 and 228.

If you think you may have a food additive sensitivity, it’s important to seek professional help, since all of the symptoms you may be experiencing can also be caused by other disorders. It is usually suggested to people suspecting they have an allergy to keep a food diary and note carefully any adverse reactions. In the case of a sensitivity being identified, the usual practice is to eliminate all suspect foods from the diet and then reintroduce them one by one, to see which additive (or additives) causes the reaction. This should only be done under medical supervision, since some of the reactions - such as asthma - can be serious.  Here is a link with the code numbers of common food additives.

So what is the answer? Should we worry about what we eat, should we try and avoid food additives? Are we at risk? In short, the answer is that most of the food additives are safe. Some can cause serious reactions in a minority component of the population. If you can avoid foods that contain many additives, do so. This would mean preparing a lot of your own food from fresh ingredients and avoiding many of the processed, pre-prepared meals. Eating a good healthful diet prepared from fresh ingredients can also protect from all sorts of other diet-related disease, such as cancer of the large bowel.

TECH JUNKIE

“The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.” - Karl Marx

Do you like gadgets? I do! Are you a technology junkie? I am! Do you spend time looking at new developments in electronics, look for labour-saving devices, enjoy finding snazzy new thingamajigs, doodads, thingamabobs and doohickeys? I do! Whether I end up buying any of these is a moot point. However, I do so enjoy window-shopping! Technological developments nowadays mean that whatever we use in our home is rapidly become obsolete and we are often forced to keep up or risk being left on the wayside.

An acquaintance was describing to me the odyssey she had experienced when she was trying to find a new ‘walkman’ to replace the one that went bung on her. She went into many shops looking for it and after talking to the salespeople, she got blank looks, incredulous gawking and snide remarks about “antiques”. I had to explain to her what mp3 files were and that nowadays it was all to do with computers, ripping, downloading, ipods and mp3 players and the such-like (she ended up finding a walkman, by the way, and she was so very pleased!).

In the kitchen, the situation is not much better. We are besieged by all sorts of technology to make the cook’s life “easier”. Don't get me wrong, I love my toaster, the dishwasher and the electric mixer… But one has to draw the line somewhere. Visiting an appliance shop where kitchen doodahs are sold can be a frightening experience. Let me see if I can give you a (of necessity, partial) list of what is available: Jaffle makers, pie makers, bread machines, waffle makers, hot dog machines, popcorn makers, vegetable steamers, soda makers, electric woks, fairy floss makers, cappuccino frothers, crepe makers, rice cookers, electric frying pans, electric pizza makers, ice cream makers, electric whisks, mixers, cocktail stirrers, coffee machines, toasters, grillers, sandwich makers, egg coddlers, egg poachers, egg boilers, omelette makers, electric pans, skillets, steak cookers, rissole makers, chip machines, chip makers, chip cookers, deep friers, food processors, liquidisers, juice extractors, citrus squeezers, electric can openers, knife sharpeners, etc, etc… And yes, people are buying all of  these things, otherwise they wouldn't be making them and selling them, would they?

Add to that several amazing gadgets that you simply can’t live without: For example, apple corers, cherry pitters, egg separators, banana slicers, bean destringers, cake done-ness skewers, wine thermometers, turkey basters, cookie cutters themed for all major holidays of the year, melon ballers, butter curlers, citrus zesters, garlic presses, waiters’ friends, bottle openers of the most intricate designs, several astounding models of bottle resealers, etc, etc…

Do you get my drift? To fully equip your kitchen and be a mastercook you need to probably quadruple its size so all of these wonderful machines can be stored in it and also be conveniently at hand. You need to mortgage your house or sell your children (probably both) in order to buy all of these things and then of course, you need to spend all of your day in the kitchen cooking and using these infernal machines so that you get value for money out of them!

Seriously now, one of the best meals I have ever had in my life was as a guest in the house of relatives of a friend that I visited in Crete. It was in a small village halfway up a mountain. The kitchen was very old, the cooking utensils sparse, the conditions Spartan. A wonderful impromptu omelette was prepared with freshly laid eggs, cheese, prosciutto (the Cretan equivalent thereof) and some wild herbs. A green salad, fresh from the garden was complemented by freshly baked bread and all washed down with a home-made fine red wine. Good dinner etiquette and silver service, white damask tablecloths, embroidered linen and crystal glasses? Well this meal was nothing like that. However, the company was delightful, the hospitality heartfelt and genuine, the meal simple and delicious. It was prepared easily and with the minimum of utensils in primitive facilities, but consumed with gusto and enjoyed by everyone.

Aren’t we making our life more and more difficult as time goes by? Aren’t our “labour-saving” devices getting to be anything but? Aren’t we becoming slaves of the technology? Don’t we have to draw a line of reason somewhere?

GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD

"High-tech tomatoes. Mysterious milk. Supersquash. Are we supposed to eat this stuff? Or is it going to eat us?" - Annita Manning

Agriculture and the way that we produce our food worldwide is a very relevant and timely topic that many people are discussing and of course is quite a controversial issue. A century ago in Australia, 30% of the national economy was represented by agriculture. Since the 1980s, it has fluctuated between 4% and 6%. At the same time there have been impressive increases in productivity. The smaller farms have disappeared or have been aggregated into larger ones, so that we now have fewer, but larger farms. China buys most of our exported agricultural products and this is a trend that will increase. Biofuels is a growing industry, and one that we shall expand as petrol becomes scarcer and more expensive.

Our reliance on science and technology for increases in productivity, and also of course, in improving the quality of our produce is indisputable. Science and technology will also be needed to better manage our water resources. Australia is the driest continent on earth and from early colonial history droughts have been the scourge of the farmer. In such a hostile farming environment, making the most of our water resources is an imperative that cannot be ignored.

Cloning of animals and genetic modification of crop plants is of concern to people worldwide. It is becoming apparent that in a world where increasing population pressures are forcing reliance on technology for increasing efficiency in food production, cloning and gene technology are inevitable. We may be looking at a future where the elite and rich of the earth eat “natural, wild-type” non-genetically modified foods, while the masses will subsist largely on genetically engineered foods that are produced more cheaply and efficiently and in much vaster quantities than the “natural, organic” types.

My personal view is that genetically modified (GM) food will become acceptable to the majority of people once they are convinced of its safety and wholesomeness, and of course, if it costs much less than the equivalent non-genetically modified food. The USA is currently the world’s greatest producer of GM food, with 68% of the world’s total GM crop production in 2000 being in the United States, followed by 23% in Argentina. The type of crops varied, but 82% of all GM crops in 2000 were soybeans or corn.

Very few of today’s genetically modified foods make it to the supermarket as whole plants or grains, but highly processed foods such as vegetable oils and breakfast cereals contain a small percentage of GM ingredients. These highly processed foods include GM materials because of inadvertent mixing of process streams. Also, soybean derivatives are extremely common food additive in the USA meaning that most consumers in America today have eaten GM food (See the article here).

Most people are horrified of GM food, but the WHO has assured consumers, that GM food is perfectly safe for consumption. On this page, you can see some common questions about GM food answered. When one considers that most of the modern-day non-GM foods that we consume bear little resemblance to the wild foods that they are derived from, as we have selectively bred into them desirable characteristics, it is an example of genetic modification that is low-tech.

Genetic modification is part of our agricultural reality and it will play an increasing role in food production this century. It is inevitable that we will be consuming more and more of this type of food in the future. As is the case with all technology, safeguards will need to be put in place such that the science involved is used responsibly and safely. All new scientific and technological discoveries can be used well or badly. It is our responsibility to ensure that the good uses greatly outnumber the bad. How we control it and police it is the all-important question…

MOVIE MONDAY - VHS, CD, DVD, BLU-RAY

I personally believe we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain. - Jane Wagner

When the digital versatile disc (DVD) came out in the late 90s, it revolutionised home entertainment and the features available on this format as well as the quality of the picture and sound have left the old VHS tape system a long way back in the past. A similar revolution was evident earlier when the CD replaced the LP and tape. I must confess to being a little bit of a technology junkie and I tend to keep an eye on new developments and often embrace these with alacrity if they offer better quality, value, ease of use or new features.

When the CDs first came out, I remember beginning to replace my classical LP collection even before I had purchased a CD player, I was so impressed with the technology! I’ll leave the vinyl aficionados to their well-worn rut of objections about the “warmth” of the sound of these old records. I am just glad to be able to listen to the music without intruding hisses, crackles, and other extraneous noises introduced by the damage the LP sustains every time it is played.

Similarly, when the DVD first came into the market, I remember watching a demonstration of this technology at an electronics show and being suitably impressed so that I started collecting these instead of the VHS tapes that I had collected earlier. I now have many movies that I really like on DVD and most of my music collection is in CD format. I still have a few favourite vinyl LPs that I am gradually transferring to CD as they are not available on this format.

Although the DVD is wonderful medium, there are several things about it that I abhor with a vengeance. These relate to the manufacturing and production of these rather than the technical aspect of the DVD. My major bugbear is the zone restriction embedded in the disc. This is to protect the commercial interests of the large film studios, but it is a feature so easily circumvented that it is simply of nuisance value. I have a multi-zone DVD player, so I can enjoy DVDs that I have purchased in USA, Europe and Asia, but some friends of mine had a player that was restricted to the Australian zone and hence they were unable to watch US DVDs. Until they found out on the web that they could reprogram their player with their remote control and now it is converted to a multi-zone player!

An extremely useful feature that I often use is the subtitle option. Even English subtitles on English speaking films is sometimes a boon, as the sound quality, accents or the complications of the script make subtitles necessary. I watched “Gosford Park” (2001) recently on DVD and was livid when I discovered that the DVD did not have the benefits of subtitling. The soundtrack of this movie contains so many asides, so much mumbling, some strange accents and also so much overlapping conversation that it was painful to try and decipher what was being said half the time. This was a pity as the film is a very good one. The other benefit of subtitles of course is that one may turn on the Italian or French or German or Spanish subtitles and practice one’s language skills.

Another thing that annoys me is the excessive piracy and copyright warnings on the DVD. In some DVDs there is even a 60 sec “trailer” about “stealing movies”, as well as the conventional FBI warnings about oilrigs and prisons and how you are not able to show these movies at those venues. I pay full price to get my DVD and then I am bombarded by all this nonsense that I can’t even fast forward through! Add to that the Dolby trailer and numerous company logos, distributor logos, production company animations, etc. It can be anything up to 5 minutes before you actually get to see the film!

Speaking of pricing, most DVDs are excessively priced, especially when first released. If the prices were more reasonable and consistently low, then I think the piracy problem would be minimized. I usually wait until I buy my DVD for my collection and instead of paying anything between $30-$40 for a newly released DVD, I wait for a few months and am able to buy it anywhere between $9-$12. Most people would prefer to own a copy of the original rather than the pirated inferior versions and this would be possible if the prices were consistently low.

Have you ever tried to read the film credits on the back of a DVD cover? The font of the used is so small and narrow that it is often illegible. I once even tried to read it with a magnifying glass on a particular DVD but failed to get any satisfaction. Similarly, the colours of the fonts used are also a rather bad choice as the contrast is very bad and makes reading the synopsis or credits a difficult undertaking. This is simply bad design.

For all their shortcomings, DVDs are much superior to VHS tapes and this explained their popularity. Now, that we have got used to them and grown to love them (and hate them) it’s time to adopt a new technology… Blu-ray discs, officially released in June 2006. By July 2010, more than 3,300 titles were released. During the high definition optical disc format war, Blu-ray Disc competed with the HD DVD format. Toshiba, the main company that supported HD DVD, conceded in February 2008, releasing its own Blu-ray Disc player in late 2009.

Blu-ray discs of course offer higher definition than DVDs and the image quality is striking on a suitable monitor. Add to that now the introduction of 3D on top of Blu-ray technology and one gets a glimpse of even more technological developments that we shall see introduced in the very near future. Although I buy Blu-ray discs if I have the option, pricing is still an issue, with most new Blu-ray discs being prohibitively expensive (especially if in 3D). If one waits a few months after the first release, the prices do drop significantly but are still relatively high, compared to DVD. Most of the criticisms I have of DVDs remain with Blu-ray discs, although the subtitling options are now mostly a standard feature.

FREE EDUCATION

“While I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting any one whom I meet and saying to him after my manner: You, my friend – a citizen of the great and mighty Athens – are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honour, and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard at all?” – Socrates
 
I have been brought up by a family who valued education. Beginning with my grandparents, then my parents, my uncles and aunts, even our family friends, they all extolled the virtues of a good education. I grew up in a household where to be educated was the rule. It was never questioned that I should do anything else but progress through school, enter University and then possibly continue on by studying further. My love affair with education, which was aided and abetted by my family, was supported by my own love of learning and the end result was that I became a dyed in the wool academic, never far from education and the pursuit of learning.
 
In the society I grew up in, education was not only respected, but put on a pedestal as the solution to that society’s many ills. A university education assured one of a certain social status, a good job, and a tacit understanding that one’s efforts would not be in vain but that they would contribute to the social good and resolve the problems that beset the country. I am showing my age and my nationality to a certain extent, as views on education (particularly university education) have changed, especially now that I am in a country where the ability to make as much money in as short a period of time as possible is seen as the real measure of success – education be damned. To be called an academic in Australia carries with it a stigma, I sometimes think...
 
Being educated in Australia and finishing my degrees here, but also after working for many years in academia, have disabused me of some of my romantic notions about education as being the panacea for all the ills of the world. Nevertheless my experiences in tertiary education have convinced me that tertiary education can be a transformative, life-changing experience. The ways in which one’s mind can be opened and the breadth of one’s existence can be expanded are astounding.
 
Major Australian universities in the “Group of Eight” (our Australian version of the Ivy League) are committed to several important activities: Tertiary education in the undergraduate and graduate arenas, cutting edge creativity and thought leadership in the arts and sciences, professional education and world-class research. All of these activities are essential assets and the best of our universities are up there with the best universities in the rest of the world. But all is not well in Camelot. Universities also have problems, even if they are in the top tier, or perhaps because they are in the top tier.
 
Why is does it cost so much to attend a university and spend such a great deal of money in order to be educated? Why do universities always demand more and more money from the government (and increasingly from their students also)? Why do universities try and attract more and more international students, who pay higher tuition fees? Are universities financially responsible and do they operate on a good business model? Are universities as scrupulous and accountable as they ought to be? Do our august universities concentrate too much on research and postgraduate education to the detriment of the undergraduate courses? Are universities truly independent and are their staff able to operate in the spirit of true academic freedom, that is, freedom of speech and enquiry? It is such questions that have been debated for decades and have created tensions between academia and our broader society.
 
In the last year or two, it seems that tertiary education has been thrust willy-nilly into a rack and forced into a situation of great stress. This is perhaps the most disruptive time in the entire history of tertiary education. The internet and its widespread, highly scalable use globally as well as the growing popularity of online education as a viable alternative to on-campus education has been a catalyst for this. The appearance of the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) into the tertiary education landscape with the consequent opportunity for students to have access to free tertiary level online study was the slap in the face that awakened universities from their complacency and forced them to ask some soul searching questions.
 
A student nowadays has many options regarding study – whether they choose to go to a physical university or not. In this rapidly changing environment becoming well educated need not be equated necessarily with being admitted to a “Group of Eight” university and paying inordinate amounts of cash to study. Flexible and global education solutions at different levels geared towards any individual are now readily available at a fraction of the cost (or free). Ultimately this empowers the learner who can make an informed decision and take responsibility for their own learning.
 
The question that arises out of this concerns the credibility, validity and validation of the education programs on offer. What is their quality, what is the ability for the learning achieved to be authenticated in a secure way, and primarily perhaps, whether or not the overall online experience is engaging, interesting and motivating enough for the learner accessing learning through the internet – i.e. the “onlinearity” of the offering: Onlinearity being the appropriateness and judicious choice of technology, good learning design and pedagogy, suitability of course material and learning objects, reliable delivery platform and media, in order to run an engaging, effective, quality online course.
 
Today Open Universities Australia launched their “Open2Study” subjects in Canberra.  This platform introduces free online subjects at a foundation level and makes them available in a format that shows good “onlinearity”. Enrolments are open in ten different subjects and they look really good. Have a look at them and see what the future holds for online learning.

MOOC

“No grand idea was ever born in a conference, but a lot of foolish ideas have died there.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald
 
It’s always exciting to go to a conference that is in one’s discipline, in one’s area of interest. It is not only a pleasant break from the routine of one’s job, but also an opportunity to catch up with one’s peers, acquaintances and friends that are attending the same conference. Being exposed to new and challenging ideas, engaging with the experts that are presenting their latest work, having a chance to present one’s own work are all great opportunities for professional development and serve as great stimuli for innovative ideas.
 
The conference I am attending is centring on e-Learning and ways in which new technologies are expanding the horizons of education in the tertiary environment. This is very germane in today’s rapidly evolving world where new technology is expanding and renewing itself on a daily basis. Academics have traditionally been quite conservative, but the pressure is on nowadays and one can be left behind very quickly.
 
The latest destabilising influence in e-Learning around the world is the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). This is a relatively new initiative that was first discussed in 2008 but really wasn’t taken up to any great extent until the last couple of years. 2012 has already been described as the “Year of the MOOC”.
 
The basic idea behind a MOOC is that it is a fully open course (i.e. anyone can do it) that could be followed online (no face-to-face attendance necessary) and for free (gratis, zilch, nada!). The idea behind the title of this course is important as it derives from the Connectivism theory which (paraphrasing heavily here) says that learning/training in this era will be successful if we learn how to connect and build relevant networks. This idea of connecting to each other to construct knowledge is one of the key dynamics of a MOOC.
 
Deconstruction of the monopolised tertiary education landscape is underway. Probably in a couple of years the traditional university will have all but died out. The academics living in their ivory towers are a thing of the past – ivory is out in case… Free knowledge is the thing of the future. The “Sage on the Stage” has given way to the “Guide on the Side”. People who are amateurs in a field of learning are deciding to teach a subject that they are passionate about and they are showing dyed in the wool academics a thing or two. Academics must change with the times or they will become extinct. Soon…

VALE NEIL ARMSTRONG

“From now on we live in a world where man has walked on the Moon. It's not a miracle; we just decided to go.” - Tom Hanks
 
Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American NASA astronaut, test pilot, aerospace engineer, university professor and United States Naval Aviator. He was the first human to set foot upon the Moon. Before becoming an astronaut, Armstrong was in the United States Navy and served in the Korean War. After the war, he served as a test pilot at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) High-Speed Flight Station, now known as the Dryden Flight Research Center, where he flew over 900 flights in a variety of aircraft. He graduated from Purdue University and the University of Southern California.
 
A participant in the U.S. Air Force's Man In Space Soonest and X-20 Dyna-Soar human spaceflight programs, Armstrong joined the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1962. His first spaceflight was the NASA Gemini 8 mission in 1966, for which he was the command pilot, becoming one of the first U.S. civilians to fly in space. On this mission, he performed the first manned docking of two spacecraft with pilot David Scott. Armstrong’s second and last spaceflight was as mission commander of the Apollo 11 moon landing mission on July 20, 1969. On this mission, Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended to the lunar surface and spent 2½ hours exploring while Michael Collins remained in orbit in the Command Module.
 
Armstrong was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Richard Nixon along with Collins and Aldrin, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor by President Jimmy Carter in 1978, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009.
 
Here is Glenn Gould in the 1981 Studio Video recording playing Bach’s “ Goldberg Variations”. A fitting memorial for the man who made a small step, but achieved a giant leap for mankind.

GRUMBLE, MOAN, WHINE...

“It’s my belief we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain” - Lily Tomlin

For Movie Monday today, no review, just a gripe about the technology. When videotapes first came into the scene everyone was ecstatic as movies could be enjoyed at home, in the comfort of your lounge room the play and stop button meaning you were in control and the fast forward and rewind buttons adding that extra bit of power in your hands. It was an imperfect system of course, and many times the precious tape of a favourite movie was mangled by the player. Still, movies at home were an increasingly pleasant way to spend one’s evening. The video rental shops proliferated like weeds in the garden and all was good…

All was good until the advent of the new technology, that is. I’ll bypass a few false starts in the next step up and go to the DVDs. When they first came out these were amazing! I mean compared to VHS tapes, we were talking about chalk and cheese. Crystal clear picture quality (compared to video tapes always), no waiting for pesky rewinding of the tapes (didn’t you just hate the people who DIDN’T rewind the tape after watching it?), subtitling in a dozen languages or more, interactive menus, special features instantly available, high quality freeze frames. Oh boy! This was worth investing in. So we threw away our fragile and ever likely to be mangled VHS tapes of classic movies and bought the DVD versions. And all was good!

All was good until the advent of the Bluray discs, that is! They left DVDs behind in terms of clarity, quality and amazing features. So yes, the technology junkies amongst us (OK, I’m raising my hand…) bought a Bluray player and began investing in Bluray discs as they were coming out. Yes, it was so much better! And when the old classics began to be reissued in the new format in restored, crystal clear versions, one had to replace those favourite DVDs with the new and improved Blurays, especially if they were offered on special by your friendly neighbourhood video store, right? Hmmmm, until the advent of something new (and they are trying it at the moment with 3D, but I am not convinced just yet)…

Now comes the serious gripe part. Recently we put a Bluray disc in the player to watch a movie and we got a nasty surprise. First came the company logo and fanfares advising us which company had made the movie. Secondly the logo of the company that had made the Bluray disc of the movie. Then the usual tirade about copyright and penalties for people infringing copyright by copying and selling the copies. Fair enough (although a criminal who is going to copy a movie and flog the illegal copies will hardly take notice of this advice…). Then another warning about illegal copies – this time a video version about how burning illegal copies is destroying the Australian film industry. Tried to fast forward that but was unable to. That really annoyed me! I paid my good money for the genuine article, I sat through one copyright warning, and now this? Why? A bit of overkill, surely.

Maybe we’d get to watch the movie now. Ha! Think again! Trailers for new releases on Bluray disc. OK, let’s skip those. Not really, couldn’t! The darned thing would not let me fast forward or skip. We had to watch four trailers of movies that held no interest whatsoever for us, wasting our precious time and increasing the level of our annoyance. When they were finally over, we thought the movie would start. No, it was the company logos all over again and then the main menu – finally! We wanted to select the option of English captions for the hearing impaired. Well, that was a herculean task as the menu navigation was counterintuitive and the options selected did not clearly show up. We ended up going back to the beginning. Yes the VERY beginning, before there was light – so we had to watch all the copyright guff and all the trailers all over again!

We finally got to watch the movie after wasting about 15-20 minutes and becoming extremely annoyed with the technology. This is not how it was meant to be. Technology is there to make our lives easier, increase our level of contentment, increase our leisure time and make things better. Bluray manufacturers, you seriously need to rethink the way you construct your disc menus and remove the punishment that you mete out to the bona fide customers that have paid good money to buy your products. Such an experience as I have described is not uncommon, although some discs are better than others. And also, I want the option of subtitles on ALL movies on Bluray. As actors are getting less articulate, as background noise and loud background music are becoming ever commoner (even over vital conversation between leads!), as regional slang and strong accents are more widespread, as whispering and comments “off” are part of movies, I find English subtitles essential in even English language films…

That’s it, I’ve had my 5 minutes of complaining. Have a nice week!

AN eBOOK FROM SYDNEY

“All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value.” - Carl Sagan

I was in Sydney for work today and spent a very busy day on our new campus. We had a Higher Education Panel come in and interview us for all sorts of regulatory requirements, and fortunately it all went well and our campus and course delivery on this new campus were approved. The progress that has been made on the fit-out and equipping of the campus has been astounding and it was great to see students already in classrooms being instructed as part of our VET programs. The regulatory visit was in relation to our Higher Education degrees, and now that this has been successfully negotiated we can concentrate on the exciting prospect of all sorts of educational initiatives being started and further developed.

Another interesting thing that happened while in Sydney was that we had a presentation by one of the major bioscience publishers on a new platform for accessing e-texts and e-resources. It was quite amazing to see what is now being done in terms of making textbooks available on electronic platforms with some added, media-rich resources that bring the content to life. This of course will mean that in the near future the physical printed textbook will become redundant, as interactive and custom-designed learning resources are made available to students.

This is especially important in tertiary education where new research and developments make the physical printed textbook out of date almost as soon as it is published. An e-Book has the advantage of being easily updated and revised, with the latest material being immediately added to the electronic edition, which is in use. The other advantage is that the material can be brought to life with animations, sound files, videos, interactive formative assessments, access to hyperlinked material on the web, wikis, blogs, etc, etc.

Another bonus is that that these e-Books are not as “rigid” as a printed text. An instructor can be quite creative when putting together learning resources for use in class. For example if I as an instructor wish to use Chapters 1, 3, 5 and 6 from one textbook, Chapter 2 and 3 from another and Chapters 11, 13 and 14 from yet another, I can construct my own recommended reading text through this anthologising process, so that my students get the learning text resources that correspond best to the specific curricular needs of any given subject area.

As we move towards more flexible and more engaging educational resources, it is important to consider the collaborative learning opportunities that can be used effectively in a classroom and personal learning space environment. The instructor becomes a facilitator of learning and provides opportunities for the class and individual students so that they construct their own tailor-made environment in which learning can occur. The use of wikis is one such example of collaborative learning opportunities, but also self-selection of the learning resources that each student can personally make allows each learner to individualise their own personal library of resources that best help them as an individual to learn from.

The physical book of course will not disappear completely as there will always be bibliophiles amongst us that revel in the book and its physical presence in our hands. Whatever technology may come, there will always be books, less of them maybe, but one would hope that they will represent the best of what is available in terms of publishing and careful, beautiful and well-prepared editions.

CAREER ADVICE

“When people go to work, they shouldn’t have to leave their hearts at home.” - Betty Bender

I have been attending Career Adviser Seminars for the better part of today and will do so for most of tomorrow. It’s been quite an interesting experience talking directly to career advisers from high schools and giving them a good background in what courses are available for students at our College. There are career advisers from a very broad range of secondary school represented and there are also a very large number of exhibitors from various colleges, government organisations and universities. The main purpose of events such as these is to inform and update the counsellors in secondary schools who must have a good broad knowledge of the careers available to students and the courses that exist and are able to get the students into jobs that interest them and inspire them.

It is extremely important for everyone to choose a job that interests them. We spend so much of our life working that unless we work at something that is interesting, fulfilling, engaging and satisfying, we can quickly become miserable. It is usually the people who hate their job that produce the worst quality work and have the highest rates of absenteeism and sick leave. It is also these people that will tend to move around from job to job with great frequency, or even end up as chronically unemployed and unemployable.

I have always enjoyed my work and I believe someone gives their best performance at work if they are genuinely interested in what they are doing. This leads to engagement and a natural tendency for one to strive and excel in what they do day after day. I have certainly looked forward to getting to work every morning and no matter how full or how busy my workday is, at its end I can honestly say that I have enjoyed it, even though I may be tired. Sure enough there may be one or two unpleasant instances and incidents here and there, every now and then, but that is part and parcel of life, not just work.

Students that are beginning their studies at tertiary level nowadays are widely different to students when I was at University. We are finding more and more that we need to educate in a way that we produce graduates who are flexible, adaptable and able to keep up with the changing times. Graduates need to respond to the evolving demands of the workplace; people who can respond in the changing world quickly. Special, specialised and flexible workers who can bring a sense of curiosity, understanding, knowledge, experience, compassion and joyfulness to the work that they do. This is only possible when someone does what they love and they love what they do.

This is extremely important in a world which is becoming smaller and where globalisation is breaking down barriers, allowing people to not only move around and work on one continent today, another continent tomorrow; but also allows people to work remotely. Outsourcing and employing people that work on the other side of the world is something that is commonplace now and it appears that no industry is immune from this. We are able to automate more work with computers and software and to transmit that work anywhere in the world so that it can be done more efficiently or cheaply thanks to the technology. The smaller the world gets, the more essential it is for people to do what they love, because more and more jobs are going to be automated or outsourced in this brave new world.

One of the skills that I want our graduating students to have mastered is having learned how to learn. That will be really important if they want to be effective in the workplace as jobs will change faster and faster in the globalised world. The best way to learn how to learn is to love learning. Students remember their favourite teachers at University although they may not remember much anymore of what they taught. They remember the teachers because they certainly remember enjoying learning from them. Students appreciate how these special teachers taught, because what they did was to equip students with the ability to be a life-long learner who are enabled to adapt and stay special or specialised in a changing world.

There is great responsibility in being an educator. Teachers have the ability to reshape, influence, impact and control their students. They can guide, inspire, transform and shape the lives of their charges. On the negative side, educators can also brainwash, intimidate, prejudice and pressure students. As a teacher, one must remain objective, fair, transparent and helpful, while allowing the student to grow and explore and learn under their own personal conditions and desiderata. Learning to learn and loving what they learn is the best way to achieve a good education, and consequently, a satisfying career.

REBORNING SIMULACRA

“Playing a robot is possibly the most difficult role you can have as an actor, because you have to take all your innate emotional responses and completely suppress them. Even the way you walk is affected.” - Kristanna Loken

Photographs are very special to us as they preserve our memories. They help us to conquer time somewhat through their maintenance of the past in a very real and immediately accessible way. Looking through our albums we travel back in time and revisit events, see again faces of family, friends, lovers, or even enemies… One way that is even better for preserving memories, many people would say, is video recordings. To hit the play button and see a piece of one’s personal history displayed in lurid technicolour can definitely transport one back to earlier times, sunlit memories which are vividly played out in front of our ageing eyes once again.

It seems now that we have some more ways of preserving and remembering the past. The process of “reborning” (what an awful word!). A “reborn” baby is a term that originated in the early 1990s and it describes the craft of painting, hairing and weighting store-bought or specialised “'reborning” baby doll kits, to resemble a real human baby. This began as a craft to evolve doll-making into a new area of verisimilitude with the “Reborn babies” bearing an uncanny similarity to real babies. Once you have seen these dolls you can understand a little perhaps the term “reborn”.

The technique has gone a step further now, with the “reborn” dolls being modelled on real babies and children so that a simulacrum is created and preserved for posterity. Parents can now order such a “reborn” copy of their child at any time they choose and capture forever a startlingly real, three-dimensional representation of their child. Seeing the two side by side as in the photograph above can be quite an unsettling experience. The Charles McQuillan photograph (that won a prize in the Press Photographers’ Year Awards, 2011) shows Sara, from Dowhill, Northern Ireland, together with her “reborn” self. This has been created a permanent memento for her parents who thus have a preserved 3D copy of their little girl as she was at that age.

Reborn doll kits, created especially for “reborners”, come in a disassembled blank kit form and are made from a soft silicon vinyl. Kits are available in regular and limited edition runs, for hobbyists and collectors. Each “reborn” doll can easily take 200 or more hours to create. Each layer of heat-set oil paint is baked onto the doll using a household oven at low temperature. By using thin successive layers of paint, the delicate effect of a baby’s skin tone can be created, complete with fine details, like capillaries and veins, milk pimples and newborn pressure marks.

When the painting process is completed, the baby has hand-rooted hair that is applied one hair at a time with a special needle. These details, with different choices of hair and eye colouration, allow for subtle differences that make each baby an original, with no two babies ever being the same. During assembly the babies are weighted with glass beads throughout their head, limbs and body to replicate the weight and feel of a new baby. They are then ready to be dressed. Obviously, if the “reborn” doll is a replica of a real person, specialised casting of the face has to occur so that the resemblance to the original is captured.

Somehow, I find this a little creepy. It is the same type of feeling that one has when one visits a wax museum. This unsettling experience has been investigated by researchers, especially where our reactions to androids and robots are concerned. Being confronted by something that looks human but is not, sparks conflict in our brain. Especially so where motion of the android is concerned. Faced with a gap between how we expect the simulacrum to move and how it actually moves causes the brain to become confused.

University of California in San Diego researchers showed 20 people video of the very lifelike Japanese Repliee Q2 android. This is one of the most life-like in the world and it was shown performing tasks like drinking water, picking up paper from the floor and waving and nodding. They were also show video of a human performing the same actions and then finally a video of the android without its “skin” on doing the same things, but looking obviously like a robot. The researchers found by studying the brain activity of the observers that the parietal cortex of all subjects showed increased activity. This is the part of the brain that connects the region processing body movements with the region that interprets and correlates these movements. The brain was trying to correlate the irreconcilable movements with the appearance of the person or “thing” making them. Its expectations for appaearance and motion to be congruent weren’t met.

It looks as though in the very near future we shall have to get used to more of this as androids and robots are to make an appearance in our everyday life as very visible players. Our brian will just have to get used to it. Still creepy, though…

simulacrum |ˌsimyəˈlākrəm, -ˈlak-| noun ( pl. simulacra |-ˈlākrə, -ˈlakrə| or simulacrums )
An image or representation of someone or something: A small-scale simulacrum of a skyscraper.
• An unsatisfactory imitation or substitute: A bland simulacrum of American soul music.
ORIGIN late 16th century: From Latin, from simulare from similis ‘like.’